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Loading...Afghan Woman First Raped, Then Charged With Adultery- EU Bans Documentary
The European Union (EU) has blocked the release of a documentary on Afghan women who are in jail for so-called “moral crimes.”
The EU says it decided to withdraw the film, which it commissioned and paid for, because of “very real concerns for the safety of the women portrayed.” A statement from the EU’s Kabul delegation said the welfare of the women was the paramount consideration in its decision.
Human rights workers beg to disagree and say the injustice in the Afghan judicial system should be exposed.
Why Are Afghan Women Imprisoned?
According to the BBC, half of Afghanistan’s women prisoners are inmates for “zina” or moral crimes. But many of the women convicted of “zina” are guilty of nothing more than running away from forced marriages or violent husbands. In other words, hundreds of those behind bars are not criminals but victims of domestic violence.
That’s where this documentary enters the picture.
Karen Day is a Boise-based freelance writer who was in Parwan writing about a detention center the U.S. was turning over to the Afghan government when she was drawn to another story.
Women Imprisoned For Refusing To Marry Men Who Raped Them
The topic: women imprisoned for “moral crimes” — things like fleeing forced marriages and abusive husbands. She discovered that some women are locked up for alleged or actual adultery, or refusing to marry men who raped them.
Even the most conservative estimates indicate that more than half of the hundreds of women and teenage girls in Afghan prisons have been convicted of moral crimes.
The EU commissioned Development Pictures to produce a documentary highlighting women’s rights issues, but then subsequently suppressed it due to political reasons. The documentary tells the story of a 19-year-old prisoner called Gulnaz.
Gulnaz Was Raped, Then Charged With Adultery
From the BBC:
After Gulnaz was raped, she was charged with adultery. Her baby girl, born following the rape, is serving her sentence with her.
“At first my sentence was two years,” Gulnaz said, as her baby coughed in her arms. “When I appealed it became 12 years. I didn’t do anything. Why should I be sentenced for so long?”
A decade after the Taliban were overthrown, Afghan women are still waiting for justice, campaigners say.
Heather Barr, of Human Rights Watch, said: “It’s very important that people understand that there are these horrific stories that are happening now – 10 years after the fall of the Taliban government, 10 years after what was supposed to be a new dawn for Afghan women.”
For many that new dawn has not come, but for Gulnaz there is now the hope of freedom.
Her name is on a list of women to be pardoned, according to a prison official, but as she has no lawyer, the paperwork has yet to be processed.
Gulnaz’s pardon may be in the works because she has agreed – after 18 months of resisting – to marry her rapist.
“I need my daughter to have a father,” she said, according to the BBC.
Check out the disputed film trailer here.
Take Action Now
If you believe this treatment of Afghan women is outrageous, please click here to sign our petition calling on Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai to give Afghan women the due process they deserve.
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Read more: afghanistan, barack obama, european union, hamid karzai, karen day, womens rights
Photo Credit: DVIDSHUB
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Recent Comments from Causes
Some very interesting facts, like that of the male moth !! Thanks for sharing !
wonderful stuff.
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+ add your ownThank you for article.
Thank you for article.
@ Ameer T “Average Americans misguidedly believe that they are fighting for a noble cause, sending their children to false wars, under false flags, funding the wars with their tax dollars” Very well put. It is frustrating to read comments about “ our heroes who give our lives to protect our freedom”, when our freedoms are being piecemeal torn to shreds daily. I do understand that people who have lost sons, daughters, fathers and spouses sent to foreign wars have a need to rationalize their deaths and maimings.
this is sick.releasing her is the very least that they can do
Ameer T. sorry I didn't read far enough. I agree.
Ameer T. No the exact opposite has occurred. Very little poppies were grown under the Taliban who outlawed the drugs. Now that we have gotten rid of the Taliban there is more opium than ever grown in Afghanistan. More than ever before.
Is this what our country is fighting for in afganistan? nothing is going to change over there.
But they did stop the Poppies didn't they? I dont care if someone grew them to put them in vases, they stopped. of course a country whose entire communication structure was destroyed would have taken sometime to get the message to farther areas. So time is not the question here. Effectiveness is.
If the Taliban were forceful about it we should all be with them on that one. Less of that poison in world would be all the better.
Ameer, when you state that poppy cultivation ended in Afghanistan with "one word" from the Taliban and everybody suddenly complied, you're not presenting a truthful picture.
The Taliban generated a very substantial decrease in poppy production (not an eradication and hardly a full-stop overnight) and it did it through a multi-layered series of very effective enforcement actions (with some rather unpleasant penalties for breaking the law).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28709721/Taliban-crackdown-against-opium-poppy-cultivation-in-Afghanistan
The Latency issue last night was crazy. I couldn't see my answer for hours and hours. Here's the rest of it;
Still, Israel has enough democracy that it’s citizenry enjoy a very nice amount of civil rights. Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait also have a decent and growing claim to civil liberties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_the_Middle_East
These just of Middle Eastern countries, in a high conflict region. Indonesia actually has the largest population of Muslims in the world, and has not been the most peaceful region, but it is currently listed as a free society (elections, civil rights groups free to operate) even tho it is under Sharia law. It’s feminists are well away more like American in spectacle confrontation and did their own version of a Bra-burning rally; http://directaction.org.au/indonesian_feminists_dont_blame_the_victim
I honestly can’t see much difference from a feminist rally elsewhere, beyond ethnic make-up and maybe more feminist men involved
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